ota {behind the mirror}

[holdsmyheart]

He's only meant to close his eyes for a minute, maybe five. But, he'd worked till well after sundown yesterday, then had come Donia Carruthers and her emergency stroke, which had seen him up all night long, getting the woman stable and trying to calm her distraught husband, and by then, adrenaline and coffee had rendered him unable to sleep, so back to his office he went.

And the agenda was full: a meeting with Rowan regarding the security issues involving the other Suits, the conversation with Mano about the h/vac system in the Castle as well as the planning and organization of a possible summer luau for the entire Deck, and countless other little details scrawled into his calendar. But somewhere around mid-morning, Theo's eyes just refused to stay open and he unconsciously leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, slipping into a doze before he realized it.

Just a minute. Just five minutes. That's all.

Comments

[butneverbreak]

"From a lifetime of being undeniably fabulous, darling." In the best and worst of times, a person had to be as fabulous as possible. It bred imagination.

And it bred, just a little bit, a taste for silliness, no matter how much steel got piled on top.

"If you aren't afraid of paper, though." And open comes the attache she'd set down at some point, out come a few spreadsheets in neat files to be set on his desk. "Just leaving these. Don't need them with any hurry. Run your eyes over them."

[holdsmyheart]

Picking it up, Theo adjusted his glasses on his nose, blinked a few times, and held the paper up a bit.

"...maybe it's the lack of caffeine talking, but just what am I looking at, Rita?" All he saw were columns of numbers. Everywhere.

[butneverbreak]

There's an absent hum as she leans a little closer, peers down at the pages with him. "Ah, well, see, this?" She taps the center of the page. "This is columns of numbers. Just... about everywhere. In technical terms."

She'll be nice in a minute, she promises.

[holdsmyheart]

Maybe it was the fact that he'd been up all bloody night long, or the fact that a dull headache was starting to throb behind his forehead, but Theo's patience was rapidly beginning to evaporate. Hence the look of Very Limited Amusement he gave up to his Nine.

"Succinctly, Rita. If you please."

Normally, he'd be all for genial banter, but it'd been a long last few days.

[butneverbreak]

And up she sits a little straighter, face setting into slightly less of a smile as she reaches to flip over a page.

"Expense reports. Expected budget request for next year. Going to need to make some funding cuts in the upcoming fiscal if we want to keep loaning. It can absolutely wait until you've gotten some sleep."

[holdsmyheart]

"Ahhh." Now it made sense. Theo nodded, taking a closer look at the spreadsheets. "Yeah," he squinted a touch, "considering I'm going to have to think about it for a bit before I sign off on anything. I know I don't want to cut the medical funding--if we keep having disasters like we have been, we're going to need whatever supplies we can get our hands on."

Same went for the educational, housing, upkeep and nearly every other department in the entire Suit. God, what a headache. But Theo grinned up at her, refolding the sheet more or less correctly.

"Thanks for getting it to me. Rowan and I'll sit down and hammer something out, promise."

[butneverbreak]

"There's time." Her fingers find his shoulder briefly to squeeze tight as she stands up. "Much rather you took a nap than rushed to get me this, mm?"

[holdsmyheart]

"Yes, ma'am," he told her genially. Gesturing with the stack of paper, he asked, "Would you have a copy printed for Rowan? I'll get it to her and we can brainstorm together."

Dropping it on his desk, he rubbed his face, stifling a yawn. "But yes, you're absolutely right, after my next meeting, I'm calling it a day and going to crash for the rest of the afternoon. Scout's honor."